The Roberts family from Margaret River caught a mixture of rankin cod, red emperor, spangled emperor and mackerel for their two week stay. The most unusual catch of their trip was a 12lb milkfish that was caught on a stickbait while trolling for mackerel. 

Milkfish are extremely hard to target, and people spend countless hours and lots of money trying to lure these speedsters. Fly fishermen in particular try small bread flies and tiny hooks. Amazingly this fish was hooked in the mouth, and the size of the lure was almost as long as a loaf of bread!

Two film crews have been catching some snippets for television programs over the last two weeks. Jason Kennedy from ‘Fishing Trip’ on the Aurora channel got into some reef fish, mackerel, cobia and even hooked some sailfish during their stay. The crew of four guys had two presenters who said that one of their days’ fishing here was the best day out fishing they have ever had... now that’s a big call from guys who fish all over the country. 

The film crew from ‘Fishing Australia’ with Rob Paxivanos also got into some reef fish, mackerel, GTs, queenfish, cobia and billfish.  The producer of the show also said on one half-day out here, that it was the best he had ever experienced in the seven years of filming with the show! Another great comment. 

The crew attempted to film fishing from a two-person Hobie kayak which has the foot pedals. This proved to be rather challenging.  It was great fun, but difficult to film when the fish kept circling the kayak and taking the anglers for a ride. They plan to air the programs in a few weeks, so watch out for it on Win TV or your local channels.

Sailfish have been as thick as baitballs off Coral Bay, with Bernie Vale from Coral Bay Ocean Game Fishing Charters tagging six on one day and twelve on the next! The canyons off south passage have also been producing large numbers off billfish and several people have said they have been reef fishing or trolling for mackerel and hooking billfish. It’s gearing up to be a big season for when the tournament starts in late October, and we reckon that 2008 will go down in the history books for being a sensational year for fishing.

Shore fishing has been good too this week, with Norm Beauchamp catching the whopping 21lb+ bluebone pictured this week from the shore in Lighthouse Bay.  Catches of squid off Bundegi on the high tide have also been reported.